March 18th is Global Recycling Day.
Global Recycling Day was created in 2018 to raise awareness and stress the importance of recycling to help preserve our planet. Understanding that not everything thrown away is waste is not a new concept. As you will see from the images below, methods of recycling were taking place earlier than you might think.
An engraving depicting a rotary magnetic separator, capable of extracting ferrous metals from up to 4 tons of rubbish per hour. Dated 19th century. 
Illustration depicting the sorting of broken glass for recycling, Paris, France. Dated 19th century. 
Manufacture of Shoddy, Deffaux’s factory, Paris. Reclaimed woollen rags shredded, top left. Being mixed with new wool and made into felted fabric called Shoddy. Mungo, a similar fabric, was made from tailor’s clippings. From ”La Nature”, Paris, 1892. 
Illustration depicting a recycling plant in New York. Dated 20th century. 
The Rubbish Carter. Rubbish collected in the city would be put into carts and taken to dust yards to be sorted by women and children who would extract anything that could be sold for recycling. Engraving from London Labour and the London Poor by Henry Mayhew (London, 1861). 
An engraving depicting London dust sorters removing anything reusable from garbage collected in the city. Dated 19th century.
All images (credit: Universal History Archive)